What is a Unitarian Universalists beliefs?

In my meager experience (1 service so far) they appear to be people seeking honest spiritual companionship without prudish Christian political correctness. It is a great place for people that actually like people just as they are with no qualifications. Kind of like Christian theology says God is like, not that one can tell it in the average evangelical congregation.

Criticizing the UU Church reminds me of the story of Jesus eating and drinking with the sinners and Republicans and then here comes the Pharisees wagging their finger at him and asking "How can he be a man of God when hangs out with people like these."

It depends on the Unitarian Universalist. We don't all have the same belief about the nature of God. This confuses, amuses or annoys Protestants, Catholics and Jews alike. You are not the first to be confused, and you won't be the last. The state secretary of Texas was also confused and annoyed, several years ago. He wanted to revoke our tax-exempt status. He lost his case.

I always say UU congregations are to churches what the Diogenes Club in the Sherlock Holmes stories were to gentlemen's clubs.

"...There are many men in London, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. . ."

(The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter)

There are people who don't fit in regular churches; Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Theists, Pagans, free-thinkers, Christians who married Jews, Buddhists who married Anglicans . . . Yet, they are not adverse to exploring spiritual issues, working with a group for social justice or having potlucks with like-minded people. So, they join a UU congregation.

Our web committee has voted down using that comparison 1:6 both times I've proposed it. They think the word "unchurchable" would offend members and visitors alike.

If you leave this question up long enough (sometimes 20 minutes is enough), someone will say we are a cult, and someone else will say we are "The church that doesn't believe in anything." I'll address both of those misconceptions below.

Most Christians believe God has three parts, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They believe Jesus was born of a virgin, that Mary was born without Sin and everyone else was born covered with Original Sin the way pelicans get covered with goo when an oil tanker springs a leak. (I'm simplifying considerably here, and I mean no disrespect.)

UUs don't all believe the same thing about the nature of God. All of us have thought long and hard about it, and we each have our own beliefs about it. We do have common beliefs, but they have to do with actions, not the nature of God. We all believe in:

1) "The worth and dignity of every person". That means people of all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, and incomes; straight, gay or lesbian. The gay or lesbian part usually upsets conservative people.

2) "A free and responsible search for truth and meaning". In practice that means we question some parts of the Bible and that almost all of us believe in evolution.

3) "The democratic process". In practice that means each congregation hires their own minister, instead of having a bishop send us a new one. We have more librarians and ACLU members per capita than most other churches.

We have four other principles. Those three are the ones you hear about most often, and the three that set us apart from some other denominations.

If you'd like to read more, I maintain the web site for my congregation.

Our Beliefs:

http://www.stanuu.org/beliefs.html

FAQ:

http://www.stanuu.org/newfaq.html

What goes on in a typical service:

http://www.stanuu.org/oofs.html

Our national organization has a much more comprehensive web site:

http://www.uua.org/

Our congregation's site has better jokes.

If you'd like to read LOTS more, our site has 40+ sermons, a dozen from our minister, two dozen from guests who are lay people. I wrote three of the sermons on the Guest Sermons page, including one, "The Devout Unitarian Universalist", that was inspired by questions on Yahoo! Answers:

http://www.stanuu.org/devoutuu.html

BELOW:

(Cults and not believing in anything)

Cults have three hallmarks, according to the dictionary.

1) They are relatively new,

2) They have a single, charismatic leader, and

3) They share a single mindset.

1) We have been around for more than 200 years. Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams were Unitarians. Clara Barton was a Universalist. The two merged in 1961.

2) Our leader, the president of the UUA, serves a five-year term, and can be re-elected just once. Sometimes we elect a person with charisma, sometimes we don't.

3) Some of us believe in God, some don't. That is the widest variety of "mindset" you'll find in any religion today.

We are not a normal denomination, but we are not a cult. People who call us a cult remind me of a boy in my 1964 homeroom class who told me then-Senator Barry Goldwater (the 1964 Republican Presidential candidate) was a communist.

On to beliefs: There are Presbyterians who vote Democratic and Presbyterians who vote Republican. No one calls them "The church that doesn't vote for anything". There are Lutherans who eat lima beans and Lutherans who do not. No one calls them "The church that doesn't eat anything". There are UUs who believe that God exists and UUs who believe that God does not exist. Th

Tolerance and "Love one another."

They deserve the title of religion or any other title they wish, because their creed is the very basis of any good spiritual life. Their open minded nature should be welcome in a world such as ours.

Christ preached Unity in his Kingdom Gospel... and his gospel was the genuine gospel. More on my bio.

All explore faith and god without getting stuck with a particular creed.

Some are universal christians who believe everyone will be saved by god,which is scriptural.Others follow less traditional routes.All share the belief in a higher power we don't really understand,and all go to "heaven".

UUs believe that all beliefs have something positive to offer and that all persons deserve respect. The services I've gone to quote from Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi and others.

It's a religious buffet. It gives people the chance to pick and choose which parts of religion apply to them and still get the humanizing comfort of being part of the group.

I'd rather have moderates than fundamentalists, but damn they are annoyingly hypocritical.

Christians cherry-pick their Bibles; any religion will have different interpretations regardless. Unitarians believe in community and tolerance and originated as an open-minded forum.

I agree with you.

@ ideo just like you cherry pick?

They don't really believe anything. They are a society not a religion. Several of their website make that very clear. However, they don't balk at having religious exception from taxes.

All Paths lead to God one cosmic love affair...la la la...la